Scannow Edition

The uncanny adventures at Geek Squad: The Scannow Edition

Over the past week, I’ve had several clients come in frustrated because Windows or their games kept crashing. Systems were unstable, unavailable, and unusable — meaning one pillar of the CIA Triad was compromised: Availability.

And yes — that alone can make this a cybersecurity incident.

Too many people picture cybersecurity as hackers in basements, malware, or Hollywood-level digital warfare. But the CIA Triad isn’t built on movie plots — it’s built on Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

Sometimes availability fails without a single threat actor involved. Something as simple as a corrupted file can take down a system as effectively as malware. Not every failure is malicious — sometimes the Wi-Fi drops mid-update, corrupting system files in the process.

One client’s PC repeatedly crashed during boot. I accessed Command Prompt and ran a single command we often take for granted:

sfc /scannow

It found 61 corrupted files and repaired them.

One reboot later — the machine ran flawlessly, and Windows Update resumed where it left off.

Lesson: Not every incident comes from an attacker. Sometimes the threat is instability, neglect, or broken updates. Cybersecurity isn’t just stopping hackers — it’s protecting availability. And that often starts with the basics.